All Terra can be divided into three parts, one of which the Novomundans inhabit, which can be called the bastion of civilization; the Paleomundan descendants another, largely mutated beyond recognition as humans or equals; and those who in their own language are divided further into separate groups, but in our eyes are only rebels, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. The sea Atlantis separates Novomundus from Paleomundus; various geographical impasses on the hinterlands of Paleomundan development separate them from the rebels.
Of all these, the rebels are the bravest, because they are furthest from the civilization and refinement of our Republic, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to poison the mind; and they are the nearest to the Paleomundans, whose weapons of the last war still plague their populace with mind-illness; for which reason the Sericae also surpass the rest of the rebels in valor, as they may still contend with the Novomundans in attempts at civilization, beyond the shields and curtains of their unholy pacts with the demons indigenous to their realm.